Dealer Success Specialist

At Edmunds we’re driven to make car buying easier. Ever since we began publishing printed car guides in the 60’s, the company has been in the business of trust, innovating ways to empower and support car shoppers. When Edmunds launched the car industry’s first Internet site in 1994, we established a leadership position online and have never looked back. Now, as one of the most trusted review sites on the Internet, millions of visitors use our research, shopping and buying tools every month to make an easy and informed decision on their next car. For consumers, we bring peace of mind. For dealers, we make tools to help them solve their problems and sell more cars. How do we do it, you ask? The key ingredients are our enthusiastic employees, progressive company culture and cutting-edge technology. Want to join the team? Read on to find out how!

What You’re Applying For:

As a Dealer Success Specialist (DSS), you will work in partnership with a designated sales team to ensure the overall health and retention of our automotive dealer customers. Your mission: help dealers sell more cars and our sales people acquire and retain them as clients. You’ll be the primary point of contact when a dealer signs up for our advertising services and will work closely with sales to maintain upwards of 300 accounts. You will be expected to support onboarding new customers, proactively reach out to maintain and improve their health, conduct on-going business reviews, and support the sales team in saving pre-canceled dealers. To be clear, this is not a sales role. You’ll be assigned a portfolio of salespeople and their territories. You’ll strategically partner with them and their dealer customers to ensure their Edmunds digital marketing presence is optimized for success. This includes acclimating new dealers to our program, ensuring they are fully optimized, making any necessary change requests and ultimately working with the dealers to maximize their performance. You’ll establish trusting relationships with dealers and show the value of the Edmunds program to make them customers for life.

What You’ll Do:

Build and grow long-term, trusting relationships with a range of contacts at assigned dealerships (buyer/signer, implementer, stakeholder, etc.), including the highest level in each organization (e.g., General Manager), to deeply understand their business goals and help them achieve maximum success on our program

Serve as a first point-of-contact for customer issues; diagnose and resolve concerns

Proactively monitor and consult with dealers on any activities or breakdowns that may adversely affect their Edmunds performance. Escalate risks or roadblocks for the dealer as needed to ensure an expeditious resolution

Analyze, interpret and deliver monthly reporting to dealers highlighting their performance, optimization opportunities, and best practices in the context of their business goals and market trends

Promote, communicate, and train dealers on the full suite of Edmunds products

Determine the right frequency to meet with each assigned customers based on each customer’s individual needs, as well as prioritization across entire customer portfolio. Ensure minimum visit/check-in requirement is met for assigned dealers within your region

Provide meticulous and detailed documentation for all activities in SalesForce

Consistently meet and even exceed goals and objectives while fostering a standard of excellence within the team

Challenges:

You’ve got to be great at working with lots of different teams and keep lots of moving parts organized. While you’ll be partnering with lots of internal teams on behalf of our dealer partners, it’s up to you to keep things organized and ensure that progress is being made.

Interacting with non-technical and very technical individuals can be difficult, you will need to have great customer support communications in order to satisfy our internal customers and external dealers and vendors.

You can tell a great story. It’s important to provide the right context and justification for changes you will be suggesting to your clients to improve their performance.

It’s easy to get bogged down in our support function, you will need to figure out how to balance your day to day processes, project work, and putting out fires as they arise

Dealing with external contacts who aren’t technically savvy or familiar with Edmunds products can be challenging. You will need to have lots of patience and love empowering people with knowledge as ensuring our dealers are successful on our products is a key function in this role.

You love to be in the know! Staying up to date with OEM and Industry trends is an important part of being successful as a Dealer Success Specialist.

What You Need:

You’re a people-person! You love talking to people and building lasting relationships.

You can also communicate difficult concepts to non-technical players (speak to the layman)

Strong communication skills (both written and oral) with the ability to build solid relationships with vendors, dealerpartners, and internal teams to provide excellent customer service (i.e. play nicely with others)

Previous experience with Salesforce or other CRM systems

Solid analytical skills in order to visualize, articulate, understand and tell stories through using data (data doesn’t scare you)

Desire to take initiative and think of solutions for problems that you may encounter (own it, Sparky)

Can easily manage multiple tasks in a well-organized and highly detailed manner while working in a fast-paced, perpetually evolving, relationship-driven environment

Comfortable with Microsoft Excel, working with spreadsheets and formulas

Working @ Edmunds.com:

Employees think it’s a pretty great place to work and some pretty impressive publications think it is too: we have been recognized as one of the best places to work by the Fortune Magazine and Great Places to Work, LA Business Journal (for the last 6 years!), Computerworld, and Built in LA. We've also been identified as one of the best workplaces specifically in Technology and also for Diversity and Asian Americans. In fact, our CEO, Avi Steinlauf, was rated as one of Glassdoor's Highest Rated CEOs! If you’re interested in learning more and joining our mission, we’d love to hear from you!

Edmunds will consider for employment qualified candidates with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of all applicable laws.

An Insider's view of Edmunds

What’s the vibe like in the office?

This is not your average corporate office. Everyone is friendly and welcoming. While we're here to get work done, not everything is all business. People here understand the importance of human relationships. Not only are we co-workers, but many of us are also friends, close ones even. To top it off, our office is fun and encouraging to take breaks!

Denise

Technical Lead

What does your typical day look like?

Each day I start by building the Edmunds story from the ground up. Using our own unique reporting tools and in collaboration with our product, analytics and marketing team, I can speak to the value of Edmunds. Once this information is complied, I head out to meet with our dealer partners to go over program results, listen, assess their needs.

Chantal

Account Executive, Major Accounts

What makes someone successful on your team?

I have grown more here than any other company. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to move between several teams. Each time, it challenged me to pick up new skills. Edmunds has a culture of continuous learning. In my time here, I have participated in study groups to learn: programming language theory, machine learning, and iOS development.

Carlos

Director, Digital Futures Engineering

How do you empower your team to be more creative?

Great ideas are the heartbeat of the Edmunds editorial team and they can come from anywhere. Everyone is encouraged to contribute and we have regular feature meetings where concepts are presented, discussed and evolved. As Editor-in-Chief, I love to be challenged by an idea and it’s hugely rewarding to see them come to fruition.

Alistair Weaver

V.P., Editorial and Editor in Chief

How has your career grown since starting at the company?

I joined Edmunds as an IT manager. Now, I manage a team of 100 employees supporting our B2B dealer business. In 18 years, I have grown beyond my own expectations. From the moment I joined the company, each of my professional needs were met. Continued learning, peer support, skills development and opportunities for advancement greet me every day.